INVIDI Technologies calls itself “the world’s only truly addressable targeted television advertising and marketing solution for cable, satellite, and telco service providers.” The company was founded in 2000 to increase the effectiveness of television advertising by making it addressable to households and individual viewers.

INVIDI provides cable, satellite, and telco operators the opportunity to position their services as a comprehensive source for targeted advertising across those respective video delivery formats. INVIDI enables operators to selectively target television viewers with the same pinpoint accuracy as direct mail and database marketing without compromising viewer privacy, thereby enhancing existing revenue streams and cultivating significant new revenue opportu­nities.

INVIDIaccesses geographic, demographic, and psycho­graphic data provided by public or proprietary databases and then uses that information to serve the right commercial to the right viewer. Addressability can target viewers according to specific buyer attributes such as age and gender, geographic location, ethnicity, pet ownership, and car lease expiration.

INVIDI enables television service providers to simultaneously deliver multiple and distinct commercial streams to different households or individual set-top boxes during a single commercial break, while also controlling reach, frequency, and separation of the commercial assets.

This increases advertising inventory and revenue opportunities for operators while providing advertisers and media buyers with a measurable and accountable way to place television advertising in front of the desired viewer demographic. Advertisers can select specific households and individual audience demographics and target them with specific numbers of commercial impres­sions. Addressability allows advertisers to send the right message to the right consumer at the right time.

What INVIDI Technologies Does Related to Brand- Specific Commercial Ratings

INVIDI enables television service providers to simultaneously deliver multiple and distinct commercial streams to different households or individual set-top boxes during a single commercial break, while also controlling reach, frequency, and separation of the commercial assets. And INVIDI also reports on tune-outs from creative, which is an aid to making better creative decisions.

PrecisionDemand refers to itself as a “TV marketing firm with a solution for accurately targeting all TV and measuring its impact in real time” and “a marketing platform that leverages big data to provide insights and drive compelling efficiencies for clients.”

PrecisionDemand believes that customer data drives targeting and ROI. Their approach is rooted in an understanding of the customer. Rather than employing mass reach, they apply sophisticated analytic techniques to cost-efficiently target more impressions on an advertiser’s best prospects. PrecisionDemand taps second-by-second TV viewership data from 10+ million set-top boxes, along with demographic and purchase data from such parties as Acxiom and marketers’ own sales data, to devise better schedules for television commercials. Their technolo­gies allow more efficient planning, buying, tracking, and measuring of TV media investments.

What PrecisionDemand Does Related to Brand-Specific Commercial Ratings

As noted above, PrecisionDemand taps second-by-second TV viewership data from set-top boxes along with demographic and purchase data to devise better schedules for marketers. That second-by-second viewership data provides brand-specific commercial ratings and can provide insight to marketers to help optimize media schedules.

Simulmedia started with the idea of helping TV networks figure out when best to place their network promotions, before offering solutions for all advertisers that want to reach targeted television audiences. The company calls itself “an audience-driven ad network for television,” and sells television advertising campaigns.

Simulmedia is an “unwired network.” They access inventory via two sources: (1) locally through cable/satellite/telco operators and (2) nationally through relationships with 30+ cable networks. The Simulmedia Audience Network monetizes under-appreciated inventory from its television partners. The network is operated opaquely, meaning they don’t share spot level detail with advertisers until after the campaign, instead selling data-defined audiences rather than specific shows, networks, geographies, or time slots.

According to Simulmedia:

Commercial and brand-specific ratings are critical to understanding advertising efficacy and are avail­able today.

Advertisers can and should demand accountability and more granular measurements across their entire media plan, especially with their television spend.

More granular measurement/guarantees are essential to the long-term power and growth of television advertising.

Simulmedia customers include advertisers, agencies, and television content producers. The company is using commercial/brand-specific measurements to help its customers find, reach, and measure their TV ad campaigns. This level of granular measurement helps advertisers better analyze spend across all networks and maximize the impact of television campaigns across specific target audiences.

Case Study

Simulmedia has many broadcast and cable network clients, all of whom are using commercial ratings to help optimize their own programming promos. For a client in the tune-in space, Simulmedia worked with the TV network to understand which of their tune-in promotion spots drove the most conversions to the show, and when the campaign’s sweet spot was for conversions with respect to hours in advance of the show’s airtime. These types of analyses help advertisers get smarter about when to advertise, which ads drive viewers, and how they might optimize for future TV campaigns.

Rentrak is a media measurement and research company providing multiscreen reporting and analytics with services positioned in two categories: movies everywhere and TV everywhere. Rentrak measures television viewing via a national footprint of over 8.7 million homes and more than 22 million set-top boxes.

TV Essentials is the Rentrak product that helps television buyers and sellers make smarter transactions by giving them a deeper understanding of the true value of their viewing audience. This is done via census-like viewership information, which, according to the company, provides a level of granularity and stability absent from traditional television measurement services, and goes beyond C3 to provide an advertiser’s Exact Commercial Ratings — not an average of all ads in a telecast.

The Exact Commercial Ratings data metric allows ad agencies and advertisers to determine how specific national commercials perform within an ad pod, advancing the national TV industry standard from measuring an average of a commercial rating performance of a telecast (or C3) to providing individual ad metrics for each specific commercial. Exact Commercial Ratings tell network advertisers exactly how many viewers were exposed to their specific commercials in a campaign, allowing them to maximize the results of their television spend. There is strategic value (beyond currency) from Rentrak’s Exact Commercial Ratings:

Measure value delivered: What did we get? How do my Exact Commercial Ratings compare to the rating of the telecast?

Determine relative value: Could we have done better in this specific case? How do my Exact Commercial Ratings compare to other commercials in the telecast and in the pod?

Improve scheduling and commercial production: Can we make better ads? When does my commercial wear out? Which commercial duration is most impactful?

Buy placement: What can we do better in the future? Which networks, dayparts, or series work best: by quarter, month, daypart, pod position, position within pod, competitive set, and/or specific creative?

Branded entertainment: Where is additional value?

Note that previous blogs in this series have featured Kantar Media and TRA.

Kantar Media has pioneered the collection and processing of return path data (RPD), which measures television audience viewing behavior by collecting second-by-second tuning activity from TV set-top boxes. Kantar’s second-by-second tuning data enables companies to evaluate television campaigns across 10 measurable influences: specific program, program genre, channel, daypart, commercial duration, pod, position in pod, product category, time shifting, and frequency. With this data, advertisers can identify the actual audience for their commercials, determine which commercials are most effective and engaging, and monitor whether specific commercials are retaining audiences or experiencing wearout over time.

Kantar Case Study: Viewer Retention for High Definition Commercials Using return path data, Kantar Media analyzed viewer retention for commercials shown in HD (High Definition) versus SD (Standard Definition). Their analysis found that HD commercials hold audiences better than SD, as measured by the share of viewers that tuned away from the commercials. For example, as seen in the chart below, 30 percent fewer viewers tuned away from auto commercials shown in HD as compared to SD.

TRA is a media measurement software, research, and analytics company whose products help advertisers, agencies, and television networks improve advertising targeting, accountability, and return on media investment. The company was founded in 2007 andacquired by TiVo in 2012.

TRA has been delivering brand-specific commercial audience metrics for six years. TRAcollects immense banks of data, including second-by-second tuning data from set-top boxes in 4.2 million households, and matches that with household purchase and demographic data. Benefits include:

Media agencies learn how variables such as networks, dayparts, program types, specific programs, time slots, and pod positions affect their ROI, and also how much time to spend on branded entertainment and what form that should take.

Creative agencies can learn which creative works best. That knowledge can markedly improve the success rate of an agency’s creative product. When a commercial is “wearing out,” the agency can identify its decline in effectiveness by observing a drop in retention. Based on which target groups are responding to the brand and the messaging with their wallets, insights can be used to drive future creative. The graphic below tracks “switchaway” from a brand’s commercials over time as a measure of wearout, so it’s clear when to replace a commercial.

By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA

Posted: May 9, 2013 12:00am ET

I am just back from the ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference, where I learned a ton, including:

It’s not just about TV any more. Advertising today is about ideas that can be leveraged via paid, owned, and earned media. (Andy England, MillerCoors)

Relevance is the one thing that cuts through the clutter. Relevance requires data. The cost of being irrelevant is enormous. (Sandra Zoratti, Ricoh)

Procurement must work on its brand. In selling procurement, relationships matter (to build trust and respect). They really, really matter! (Sopan Shah, Nestlé)

What makes a good client? (1) A client that really understands what they are looking for; (2) Trust; (3) Views agency as part of the management team; and (4) Clearly defines the financial parameters of the engagement. (Miles Nadal, MDC Partners)

In analytics 2.0, finance and procurement must make sure questions are big and worthwhile while not letting resources get fractured over dozens of ad hoc initiatives. (Pat LaPointe, MarketShare Partners)

Procurement should be an enabler. (Kevin Nash, USAA)

An in-house agency could cost 20-40% less than an external agency. (Kellie Krug, Wells Fargo)

At least half the challenge with marketing efficiency is due to internal issues at the client. (Jeff Jacobs, McKinsey)

Traditional breakdowns of working versus non-working spending are no longer relevant and should be replaced with channel agnostic ROI metrics. (Bryan Weiner, 360i)

In agency compensation, the use of performance incentives is up dramatically. (Dave Beals, R3:JLB)

By Marni Gordon, vice president of committees and conferences, ANA

Posted: May 8, 2013 12:00am ET

ANA has just released the results of our 2013-14 National Television Upfront Survey. The objective is to better understand this year’s National Television Upfront marketplace from the client-side marketer perspective. This survey was fielded to a select group of ANA Committee Members and those who have direct oversight of media negotiations were encouraged to complete this survey.

Key highlights:

The majority of respondents project an increase in overall media spending for 2013 (41%) and plan to participate in the 2013 National Television Upfront (65%).

26% of total respondents plan to increase overall media spend by +5%

Survey results indicate a significant shift of total media dollars from Network TV to other media when compared to last year.

The majority of respondents projected Network TV to decrease vs. last year (45%) with other Television (Syndication, Spot TV, DRTV) and traditional media (Print, Radio, etc.) at flat spend.

By Yasmin Melendez, director of committees and conferences, ANA

Posted: May 6, 2013 12:00am ET

Many B2B companies find it challenging to engage in social media because they don’t know how it ties back to the organization or how to sustain it in the long-term. On May 1, the ANA Business-to-Business committee welcomed Lauren McCadney, senior manager, social media at CDW who shared some tips to leveraging loyal customers that goes beyond ratings and reviews.

Here are eight ways CDW sustains its social engine:

Celebrate those that are delivering great service – Cheers! CDW’s peer-to-peer recognition program, uses customer reviews to celebrate account managers who are “delivering service worth talking about.” This encourages account managers to go the extra mile.

Training insights – If an account manager receives multiple Cheers!, CDW will benchmark what they are doing in order to incorporate those best practices in training of other account managers.

Drive business insights – Analyze customer reviews to discover business insights that can help account managers better serve customers.

Don’t be afraid of a bad review- CDW finds that most people are polite, but if there is an unsatisfied customer it’s an opportunity to win them over. Lauren advises always acknowledging a “bad review” on social media channels and then taking the conversation offline to see how best to resolve it.

Collaborate with other departments – The social media department interacts closely with the customer care and brand team to ensure that the social editorial calendar links to the solution and brand messaging.

Meet with your social counterparts – CDW holds quarterly social summits to evaluate what worked; what didn’t and brainstorm content ideas and ways to leverage content from other parts of the organization.

There’s no place like home - Find your community. CDW found Spiceworks, an IT community they engage with to build thought leadership and socialize with millions of potential customers.

Identify your influencers- CDW identified three types of influencers which they bucketed into C-suite types, Bloggers and Super Fans. They work with these influential brand enthusiasts to develop content that resonates with their base.

By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA

Posted: May 3, 2013 12:00am ET

Earlier this year ANA convened the Commercial Ratings Summit, and then a follow-up webinar, to discuss solutions that could help facilitate the availability of brand-specific commercial ratings for television. Those events featured presentations from eight industry suppliers who may offer solutions for brand-specific commercial ratings: comScore, INVIDI Technologies, Kantar Media, Nielsen, PrecisionDemand, Rentrak, Simulmedia, and TRA. The new white paper highlights solutions from these respective companies for brand-specific commercial ratings, including case studies, and helps continue the industry dialogue on this issue.

ANA member interest in brand-specific commercial ratings is high. In a 2011 survey, 82 percent of members surveyed expressed interest in having ratings available for individual commercials.

ANA members and other industry experts have identified numerous benefits for brand-specific commercial ratings.

Better Knowledge/Increased Accountability

Commercial ratings would provide more granular data to better inform the decision-making process.

Marketing mix models could be input with brand-specific commercial metrics rather than averages (which may or may not reflect the delivery for that specific brand) to provide increased accountability.

An indication of a brand’s commercial performance vs competitors, other ads in the program, and other ads in the pod.

Better Media Decisions

To indicate which networks, dayparts, or programs work best for a brand.

To optimize the mix of :30s and :15s and help determine the impact of commercial duration.

To understand the delivery of :15s — because :15s don’t get fair rotations of “A” positions in pods, it’s likely that the delivery of a schedule that is heavy with :15s doesn’t meet the overall C3 delivery.

Branded Entertainment

To determine the value and ROI of branded entertainment, including in-game features during sports programming.

ANA expects this new white paper to be a resource for members. And will continue to advocate on the issue of brand-specific commercial ratings and keep our members and the overall industry informed of progress.